There are two kinds of business plans.

Find what’s common and in demand. 

Do that. 

Charge less than the person next store. 

Find what’s rare and unique. 

Do that. 

Charge for it. 

In Chiang Mai, Thailand there’s beer everywhere. 

There’s very little craft beer. 

So if you sell beer in Chiang Mai you could sell Tiger Beer for a little less than everyone else (or import Bud Light). 

Or you can make your own beer and charge a premium. Because it’s rare and unique. 

In America, there is ice cream all over the place. 

But it’s rare to find Bing Su (Korean ice cream that’s is the consistency of snow cream, in a bowl with delicious fruits and syrups) in the US. 

So you could open another ice cream store and sell for less than Baskin Robins. 

Or you could open a gourmet Bing Su shop and educate your community on the tastiness that is Korean snow cream. 

And charge more. In America, you could probably charge a lot more. 

When you make a business plan, you make a decision. 

You’re either going to be average, but cheaper, scaling by volume. 

Or rare and unique, but more expensive, scaling by quality. 

One isn’t better than the other. 

But, frankly, there needs to be more Bing Su outside of Asia.